Martino de Grandis will be photographer in residence at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) for the next academic year (2023-2024). In this role, he will create photographs for special occasions. The artist will also have the opportunity to exhibit his work on campus. De Grandis graduated this year from the photography department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
Jury report
Every year, a jury from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam visits the photography department's presentation during the Rietveld Academie's graduation show. This year's jury consisted of Maaike Lürsen (CvB secretary), Maaike Snoek (HvA collection management), Jolieke Timmemans (student assessor), Tamara Witschge (lecturer), Kim Franssen (board secretary) and Patricia Heukensfeldt Jansen (CvB assistant).
Martino's work was chosen because, according to the jury's report, "the exhibition of his work offered a real experience: visitors were invited to view the work from a bed that had been converted into a seat. Martino's work invites us to reflect on our domestic environment and the way we make a space our own. His work documents trips he took with his parents, where they both customised and critiqued the Airbnb apartments they stayed in. How do we relate to our homes, on the one hand wanting them to be unique, and on the other filling them with generic furniture to make them recognisable to those who visit our homes? The staging, quality and social relevance of Martino's work were the deciding factors for the jury."
Art collection
Since 2015, the HvA has collaborated with the Gerrit Rietveld Academie on the Photographer in Residence programme. This enables the HvA to offer a celebrating or retiring board member a unique gift and to complement its own art collection with original works by a young, Amsterdam-trained artist. The artist is given the opportunity to reach a new audience.
Image: Martino de Grandis is the middle, with the flowers, photo by Sophia Xu